Category: Guidance

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Podcast: PERMA instead of Torpedo - rethinking leadership.

I was a guest at ROBE & REVOLTE. Sarah and Franziska, former administrative judges, now lawyers and coaches, want to provide food for thought with their podcast, for and with everyone who wants to help shape the future of the legal profession - with lightness, humor and depth. Together, they illuminate and question the status quo. Always with a focus on how things could perhaps be done differently. True to the motto: If you don't like it, do it again!

🎧 Click here for the audio podcast - where you can also find out what the torpedo is all about 😉:

📝 Shownotes:

Dr. Bernd Bürger was active in the Support Command (USK) of the Bavarian police for many years. He is now head of the Leadership and Operations department at the training institute there. Bernd is also an expert in positive leadership (PERMA LEAD, an approach developed by organizational psychologist Dr. Markus Ebner).

PERMA stands for:

  • P for positive emotions.
  • E for engagement - contributing strengths and getting into the flow.
  • R for Relationship - shaping sustainable relationships.
  • M for Meaning - giving meaning to work.
  • A for Accomplishment - making success visible.

Bavarian police and modern management culture - do they go together? Who has time for that? Is it just about having fun at work? Or is it even possible to promote employee performance? Their willingness to change and their well-being? What does a team have to do with a garden? What does PERMA mean? Is it all ring-around-the-edges? What about hierarchies? And what's actually going on with Generation Z?

Bernd enlightens us - in his inimitable way, with which he manages to explain scientific findings and practical experience in a clear and captivating way and takes us into the world of positive leadership. He also tells us what other As he adds to PERMA in his work.

You can find Robe & Revolt here: https://linktr.ee/robeundrevolte

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Podcast: Positive leadership in the police force

It was a lot of fun recording this podcast with Dr. Dorit Bosch and I am happy to share it with you.
🎧 Click here for the podcast:

The show notes:

👮‍♂️😇👨🏻‍🎓Dr. Bernd Bürger 🇪🇺 combines two worlds. On the one hand, he has been with the Bavarian police force for almost 30 years and has been head of the Leadership and Operations department at the training institute there for 5 years. On the other hand, he is an internationally sought-after scientist, speaker and positive leadership coach.

Bernd found his way to positive leadership in practice as a police officer because he was looking for a solution to build a positive and productive relationship among colleagues, but also with citizens, beyond hierarchies. #PERMA-Lead is just such a practical method that specifically promotes motivation, health and well-being.

📕The approach was developed by organizational psychologist Dr. Markus Ebner and is illustrated in his Book "Positive Leadership" presented. He uses PERMA to describe five elements that a manager should take care of:

P for Positive Emotions
E for Engagement / Strengths-based leadership
R for Relationship / sustainable Hashtag#relationships
M for Meaning
A for Accomplishment / making success visible

👉🏻Mehr on positive leadership can be found on Bernd Bürger's homepage. In addition to the book by Dr. Markus Ebner, he also recommends the Podcast "Positive leadership" by Christian Thiele.

Experience the positive effect for yourself at Bernd's boot camp at the Mindshift Festival and register now.

🗓️ 15.-16.5.2025
📍Atelier Gardens Berlin
🎟️ More info / Registration

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PERMA-Lead in a Nutshell

After I was on the Conference of Heads of Authorities of the Hesse Police PERMA-Lead - and it was then introduced there as a leadership tool - here are a few backgrounds and the five elements in the short introduction - but buckle up, I'm talking pretty fast (it's like speedwatching, GenZ style 😜)

On a self-critical note, I have to say that I now explain relationships with a focus on psychological safety. Creating this by building trust, a learning culture and inclusion contributes significantly to sustainable relationships. Maybe one day I'll make a few videos on the subject myself.

If you want to experience PERMA-Lead - click here for my Collection of practical tools.

Thank you very much, dear Torsten Krückemeier and Police Hessefor allowing me to use this video and I wish you every success on your great journey!

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What is PERMA-Lead?

Here is a brief summary of what PERMA-Lead actually stands for. You can find detailed information in the books by Dr. Markus Ebner or in my presentations and keynotes.

PERMA-Lead transfers the principles of the PERMA model (positive psychology) on leadership and focuses on the well-being of employees as the basis for sustainable success. This approach is not only ethically sensible, but also strategically clever, because the Study situation proves numerous positive effects.

The manager "only" has to ensure that the employees experience enough PERMA in their work - just like a good gardener ensures that the plants have enough fertilizer (which consists of various components). Incidentally, this also means not overfertilizing everything once and then not caring anymore, but fertilizing regularly 😊! You can also find many practical examples of how to implement this in my Toolbox.

  • 😊P - Enables positive emotions: Managers actively try to promote positive emotions at work, for example by appreciating their employees, laughing with them or giving them space to laugh and ideally also having and spreading a good mood themselves.
  • 💪 E - Promotes individual commitment: The manager should know what strengths the employees have and try to use these in a targeted manner so that they can live out many of these strengths in their work.
  • 🤝R - Creates sustainable relationships: This is largely about psychological safety, i.e. creating a culture based on trust, where the focus is on learning from mistakes and where everyone feels welcome and valued for their qualities.
  • 💭 M - Conveys meaning in the work (Meaning): Managers should explain the meaning of the work, of individual work steps, but also of decisions and changes, and thus take the employees with them. This also included, for example, explaining the needs of other organizational units and demonstrating the overall purpose of certain activities or processes.
  • 👍 A - Makes achievements visible (Accomplishment): Work never stops. There's something to do every day. A classic hamster wheel. This makes it all the more important to be aware of what you have actually achieved. Feeling this self-efficacy is, for example, an important resilience factor for burnout. Managers can play a decisive role in ensuring that employees are aware of their small successes. And praise and, if possible, celebrate major successes in front of others!

Conclusion

Read the books, ask me for a lecture, get infected. Positive leadership is really fun and good for you! If you want to stay on the ball, have a look at my LinkedIn or Insta over - and don't forget the Toolbox to look at. Try it out!

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👮‍♀️ Public order policing and positive leadership?

🪧2024 was again dominated by lectures on my favorite subject: the role of the police at assemblies


🌏Among other things, I was with the riot police in Saxony-Anhalt, the Thuringia police executives, the conference of the European Police Research Institutes in Amsterdam and at the Public Order, Crowd Management and Riot Control Conference in Vienna.

🎙️Mein Focus among other things: How the police work (change of perspective) and what mindset is required (e.g. communication as a key element) in order to manage assembly situations professionally.

💡What struck me as a positive leadership coach is that there are parallels between the successful mindset and PERMA-Lead:

☺️ Positive emotions: Smiling police officers have a direct effect on the mood and prevent negative stereotyping.

💪Engagement: Strength-oriented leadership. Train police officers who are keen on tactical communication and then let them do it! Personal initiative and authentic communication is a key factor in successfully dealing with a situation.

🤝 Relationship: Try to build a trusting and honest relationship with those responsible in order to ensure a safe assembly together.

💭Meaning: Explain meaning - means to explain why the police will do / have done something.

🍾 Accomplishment: Recognizing successes, i.e. also analyzing why the assignment went well and appreciating the (wo)men of the match.

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Seeing people. Growing together

☺️ Seeing people. Growing together. What fitting and inspiring sentences for a strategy to promote good leadership and positive cooperation.

👮🏻 It was incredible the energy I was able to experience at the Münster Police Headquarters. Something is happening, there are many police officers who want to make positive changes. Just my thing 😍

❓But why this mood? I was able to identify two aspects: An energetic, inspiring and passionate about the topic Antonia Linnenbrink with a super friendly and committed team. But - and now we come to the crucial point:

💪 You have to give people the opportunity to contribute their strengths. And that's what the President of the Münster Police Headquarters and gave the team time, opened up the platform for them and gave them targeted support. It really was a celebration to see you together, because even the dear Alexandra Dorndorf is infectious with its positive energy.

🙏 It was great to be able to experience you! Thank you for letting me make a small contribution and good luck on your inspiring journey!

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Positive leadership with PERMA-Lead

Why I as a manager I am convinced of PERMA-Lead

Since 2013, I have been a management trainer at the German Police University , I am currently head of the Leadership and Operations department at the Bavarian Police Training Institute and have held various leadership positions in the Bavarian police force. So I have been dealing with the topic of leadership for a very long time, have read numerous theories and studies and reflected on them in a practical leadership context. But as exciting as many of the approaches were, what I lacked as a manager and scientist was scientific proof of the effects and / or easy practical applicability, i.e. an operationalization of this "leadership style".

Continue reading „Positive Leadership mit PERMA-Lead“
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Reflect on leadership behavior in a scientifically sound way: PERMA-Lead Profiler

Detailed feedback on your own positive leadership behavior and expectations in just 15 minutes? This is possible with the PERMA Profiler, an online test procedure that meets the criteria for organizational psychology diagnostics.

The evaluation

In my opinion, the evaluation report is terrific. You get a 13-page evaluation report with appealing content and design. It also shows your own results in comparison to a regularly updated benchmark. This allows you to see in which PERMA lead factors you are already well positioned and where there is still potential for development.

The exciting thing: The Profiler is also part of the 360-degree feedback and, based on the data from the self-assessment and external assessment, a study was able to show that although managers rate themselves better than employees do, the trends are the same. This means that if, for example, you rate yourself as having the most room for improvement when it comes to promoting positive emotions at work, employees are likely to rate you the same way. This means that you can also work on the relevant areas based on your self-assessment.

Profiler: Excerpt from the "Positive emotions" section

The report also has the advantage that everything is explained individually according to the results. More than 700 different text modules are combined for this purpose. And you get a benchmark for each area, i.e. how other managers rate themselves in this area.

Unfortunately, the test is not free, as the development team, servers, etc. have to be financed. There is a variant where you get the results yourself, but I would only recommend this in connection with a workshop, as in my own experience it is important to be able to discuss the results. The second option is to do this at the same time as an evaluation coaching session, in which case you receive the report during the meeting with the coach.

If you want to do one of the variants, get in touch with me or with one of the other certified PERMA lead coaches. You can find a coach in your area via this GoogleMaps map. Then simply write an email to the dear colleagues at [email protected] with the number of the coach you want and you will get the contact.

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Positive leadership for practice

You can find practical tools for putting PERMA-Lead into practice in my new toolbox. Here I provide all the tools that I have come across in police forces and organizations, that I have stumbled across in specialist articles or that I have (further) developed myself.

Click here for the PERMA Lead Toolbox.

Many more practical examples, for which you don't need a download, can be found in my presentation. Or - and this is the most fun: develop customized tools yourself in PERMA Lead Workshops

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Healthy leadership with positive leadership

🍎 Healthy leadership with positive leadership. That was the title of my keynote speech today at the Lower Franconia Police Headquarters Health Day.

🔬 It was a pleasure to show my colleagues the scientifically proven positive effects of experiencing PERMA on resilience and illness. Thank you very much, dear Dr. Markus Ebnerfor your great studies.

☺️ We also experienced a lot of PERMA, laughed, smiled, reflected on our strengths and discussed many practical examples.

👏And the PP Untefranken set a great example with this day: Active promotion of positive emotions, many speakers and sports coaches (and a great organizer - Claudia Ernst) who were able to live out their strengths, lots of cross-organizational contacts (relationships) and a lot of meaningfulness:

👍🏻 Even State Secretary Sandro Kirchner, MdL took a lot of time and emphasized the importance of the health of Bavarian police employees with his presence and words of welcome!

😊 A great event that filled my PERMA memory properly again!

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